Other
by eyyowlf
Summary: On the backwater world of Dantooine, Bastila Shan wakes from the nightmare of Darth Revan's flagship.. only to discover the horror isn't over. The Order keeps a secret in a kolto tank far beneath the gently rolling plains. Pre-KOTOR, male Revan/Bastila.
1. Chapter 1

She is a child again and she plays in the fields beyond the enclave.

They all laugh and chase and run across the rolling fields.

_Can she hear us?_

The ribbon is streaming out from Zayne's hand, the ribbon he took from Master Q'anilia's robes. Bastila always marveled at the silky stripe of color and wanted some for her own hair, just a little, just cut it in half and then

_Go easy, go in stages. We can't lose her. _

And then she could have one piece for each pigtail.

The lavender grasses come up to her eyebrows now and she can't see running. She can't see the red ribbon or the mop of Zayne's hair.

She yells his name to no answer, no running sound, nothing now, and she stops and looks around through all the blurry grasses.

_What did she say?_

Of course Zayne isn't here, Zayne was bad, he caused all of that trouble years ago in the war. He got them all killed. He defied his masters. A good padawan

_I said easy, damn it! _

A good padawan always obeys his master.

Now the grass brushes over her face and her hands as she reaches outstretched to find her way through. All the others have left her and she is alone. When she was even younger yet, her master told her about her talent.. That those with her talent would reach many.. but always stand alone.

There is no sound but the sound of the grass. She holds it away from her face and steps through. When her hand comes away wet, she looks at her fingers and finds all the red. Huge smears of red and black in the grass.

An insect buzzes somewhere loud and close. She jumps and goes through, following the slashes of red and tamped down grass, calling out for help- someone's hurt- and in the grass she finds someone, a body, it is her and it's her body, Bastila Shan bleeding from her nose and mouth out in the field help

help someone

"_Bastila_," someone said.

There were faces around her and a bright light behind their heads.

"Bastila, you're safe with us now," said the voice from the female human.

She became aware that she stared at three jedi masters and a room of military uniforms, a room of humans and aliens of many kinds.

Cold sensation on her face. A wet washcloth gently dabbing her cheek and neck.

"Master Vash," she whispered.

Lonna Vash smiled.

"Signs are looking good, ma'am," said a blond Republic medic.

"Do you know where you are?" someone asked her.

Her eyes moved from face to face.

Another voice asked, "Do you know what has happened?"

Her voice was a croaking sound. The field.. there was a field, and blood..

"What is the last thing you remember?" asked Lonna Vash.

Bastila closed her eyes. Then opened them. "Revan," she said.

* * *

"You had us frightened," said Lonna Vash as she lathered Bastila's hair. "You've been out for two weeks."

Two weeks! Bastila sank in the tub, her shoulders sagging. "I don't understand," she said.

For a moment, Vash said nothing. She just hummed softly as she worked her fingers through Bastila's hair. The gentle touch brought back childhood memories of daily rituals in the enclave. Preparing the children for the day's start and day's end. Lonna Vash had always been kind to her, and though Bastila knew it was wrong to favor one master over another, Vash had secretly been one of her favorites.

In her early fifties, she had a youthful spirit and a mischievous spark to her. Laugh lines crinkled around her eyes, and she was always telling jokes, always cracking a smile. The force glowed in her. Bastila yearned to be like that when she was just as old. She wished she could laugh so freely, to live so freely and be so alive. But Bastila's gift was one that demanded restraint. Restraint and discipline.

Late afternoon light filtered through tall grass and a simple window. She had been taken to a chamber in the sublevel to wash up and prepare. Apart from the antique tub and low tables, the room held no other real furniture but a mat woven from the lavender field grasses. Bastila could smell the grassy field smell even over the scent of hot water and the soap that Vash brought to a pleasant foam.

"Do you remember what happened on the_ Indomitable_?" Vash asked in a gentle voice, then.

"Malak fired on the ship," Bastila mumbled against her arm. Her lips felt dry and chapped. Her neck hurt and she felt as though she could hardly hold up her head.

Vash swept up soapy curls from the back of Bastila's neck, brought the whole wet lathery mess up, sculpting and kneading. "You dragged Revan to safety. Do you remember that?"

"I.. I couldn't leave him. Her," she said. "We'd gone through so much trouble.. Master Fethnu wanted to kill him.. He is a him, isn't he? I mean, or is it a woman?"

"Him."

"I thought you would want me to capture him. To take him alive."

Vash said nothing yet. She listened and touched gently, her hands welcome in Bastila's hair. She wanted to be comforted, to be as a child again, but no warmth of affection could heal the cold dread in her bones. Something was wrong.

In the guilty silence, Bastila added, "I thought that's what the Council would have wanted." Gripping the edges of the tub, she turned her head as best she could.

Vash smiled and stroked her face, leaving behind a sudsy shampoo dollop. "You did better than we could have imagined," she said. "You kept well to your training and I can't imagine the things you must have seen aboard that ship... "

"There were.. machines," Bastila said. "I.. what's happened to me? I feel so.. "

"We didn't understand at first," Vash told her, "but when Revan went under.. you went under. You nearly died. We think somehow a bond formed between you." She dunked a bowl into the water, filled it.

"A bond?"

"A bond through the force."

"Such as between a master and apprentice?" said Bastila in horror.

Vash canted the bowl over Bastila's head, rinsing out the soap. "Exactly that," she said. "We were afraid that if he died we would lose you also."

Her hair all poured down her face, Bastila said: "Revan lives?"

* * *

Master Vash led her into the gold light of a breathtaking Dantooine sunset. Bastila went on unsteady legs, her boots knocking out a drunken cadence on the flagstones of the complex walkways. Padawan learners smirked and giggled to watch her walk, children of half a dozen races. Their minders shooed them on to take them to the tubs and to the communal meal. Bastila knew the routine well: there would be group meditation afterwards, the recitation of the day's lesson, and then they would stand by their mats and recite the Code. Then to bedtime.

Bastila hardly knew where she was going, but she trusted Vash, and she trusted in the hand interlaced with her fingers. Revan was here. On Dantooine. Bastila had come to understand that her confusion was his confusion, that this drunken stupor of hers was the sharing across their bond.

She was afraid.

A speeder idled in the tall grass. The setting sun bounced off the metal. Both craft and driver were absent of any identifying marks or insignia, but Bastila knew the man must be military. The short hair, the ramrod posture, the old scar running down his face and throat. He waited outside the craft to help them enter.

Bastila held her free hand to her eyes to see him better against the light, and just as they came up on him, she recognized him as one of the troopers from the last mission.

"Ladies," he said.

The speeder took them a distance across the fields. How far, Bastila couldn't tell. She leaned heavily on Master Vash and watched in a glaze as the grasses rolled by in glittering violets and burnished golds. The alien antelope iriaz bounded away from the craft with great acrobatic jumps. A kath howled somewhere in the hills that bordered the grassland.

They passed the fencing of a family farm, crossed a stream, and then went until the sun dipped beneath the horizon. The last light was going softly purple when the speeder pulled up on the complex. The cluster of buildings were in Dantooine style, though the main structure had the curvy architecture of the enclave.

It would have seemed insignificant if not for the Republic ships grouped nearby: two freighters, a shuttle, and six aurek fighters.

Armored troopers patrolled the area.

A bothan in dirty coveralls was wandering around trying to get better reception with his holo.

"What is all this?" Bastila said as the driver helped her down. He smelled of sweat up close. "Is he here?"

"Security's tight, ma'am," the trooper said. "Don't worry about anything."

The driver snapped off a sharp salute and jumped back into the vehicle.

"We keep him out here for his safety," Vash told her. "There are those who might try to harm him, if they knew."

Bastila took it in with amazement. She hadn't known this all was here.

"He can't escape," Vash went on, as she led Bastila past the patrol and into the building. They saluted as she went by; she half-wondered if the troops' gesture was meant for her as a jedi, or for her as Bastila Shan. "He's in something of a coma.. he can't hear, see, or interact with us in any way. He's been badly hurt."

"Will he come out of it?"

In a careful voice, Vash replied, "We don't know."

Heavily armed soldiers met them at the doorway. Their masked heads turned to look the women over.

"Identification," one said.

They were checked, scanned, and scanned again. The one soldier watched them close, weapon ready, while the other reported their credentials over his commlink. In the indeterminate period of waiting, Bastila swayed slightly, fighting the urge to close her eyes and sink against the cool stone tiles.

Once they were permitted entry, Vash spoke up again. "We're in a delicate situation so far. We need to find whatever it is that Revan and Malak discovered. Their edge over us is considerable.. or was. The destruction of Telos wasted some of their major assets, and now that Malak turned on Revan, Malak has lost the flagship _Indomitable_ and a significant number of key personnel."

"There were droids on the ship of a kind I've never seen." Bastila remembered the scythelike hands, the glowing eyes, the way they ripped through jedi as through straw dummies.

"They're very different, and they're very old." Vash shook her head. "We have reason to believe that Revan and Malak encountered some ancient sith technology after Malachor. But we have few clues."

"Can't we.. Isn't it possible to look into his mind?"

"We.. tried," Vash allowed. "His mind is too damaged for us to continue that way."

"Where do I fit into this?"

"We don't know yet, my dear. No one intended for this to happen." Vash slowed, turned, and squeezed her shoulder. "Your wellbeing is our foremost concern, Bastila."

Because of my gift, Bastila thought. My curse.

They stood in the corridor a moment before a matching pair of silver women came to flank them. Same faces, same eyes, same voice.

"We will take you to the chamber," said the echani sisters.

Bastila had never before seen such security measures.

Every room, every corridor, every corner- guards, sentries, patrols.

Bastila felt like she was swimming out of her fog, and as the world focused for her, she began to realize the immensity of this situation. "You would think they have half a battallion stuffed in here!"

"Just about," Vash replied.

There were alien soldiers here of races she didn't even know.

And bothans- everywhere.

"No droids?"

Lonna smirked a little, then. "The admiral was against it. She didn't want him to get ahold of them somehow. You never knew him when he was a boy.. but he always had a special way with machines."

The echani women led them into another series of tunnels, down a lift, and then into what looked like a vault.

"We will take leave of you now," said one of them. They were identical. Same hard face. Same flat eyes.

"Thank you," Vash said.

When they were alone, Bastila whispered, "I'm going to see him now?"

"Yes.. but he won't be awake." Vash stroked her upper arm, squeezed, and said, "Don't be afraid."

The vault opened for them.

The sudden contrast in temperature got to her first. No longer the cold air of the tunnels, the steaming environment of the chamber made her head spin. Hot and so humid. The sound of water. The floors were wet and she nearly tripped over hoses. The smell of brine filled her nostrils.

Someone helped to steady her. Master Zhar.

He spoke gently to her in his native tongue, turned her face up, and smiled.

"I'm- I'm fine, thank you," she told him. "Just a little light-headed."

"Take your time," Vash said.

When her eyes adjusted to the dark, Bastila saw the array of empty tanks and grouping of medical equipment. The chamber looked hastily converted to its new purpose. Military personnel were moving quietly about with datapads and holos. More bothans.

Master Zhar was relating how _he_ had moved a half hour ago, reacting to a tap on the glass.

"Shame on you, Master Zhar," Vash replied with a slight smile. "Didn't they tell you not to tap on the glass?"

Zhar smiled back, a smile of sharp twi'lek teeth. He admitted that this was so, but he was delighted to see a reaction from inside the tank. But he hadn't moved since.

Bastila had always wondered what Darth Revan looked like. So did everyone else. The great mystique around Darth Revan was due in no small part to the mask and the armor. Even as she stood facing the dark lord on the bridge of his flagship, Bastila had no idea if she fought a woman, a man, an alien- some even whispered he was a machine.

All she remembered, and it was blurry now to her, all she remembered was a figure of liquid black speed, swifter than her, stronger than her, toying with her.

That sibilant voice distorted from the helmet vocabulator, and what it said to her.

The thing in the tank looked small. Pale, sickly, pathetic. She could count the ribs on his torso. Tattoos ran up and down his body and dark bruises showed up all over in multi-colored splotches. A body of scar and injury, new and old.

He was nude and the first naked man that Bastila had seen.

A breathing mask was fitted over his face, so all of his features that she could tell were prominent cheekbones and bruised, sunken-looking bloody eyes. He was bald with stitches and sutures, and jagged pieces of metal stood like a fringe from the back of his skull.

"It's stuck in his head," Bastila realized. "His mask went into his head."

"There is talk on how to remove it," Vash said. "We have the best surgeons on it already."

She took in the sorry sight of the tank. So did Zhar, looking in, friendly, but apprehensive. Vash studied the two of them instead.

Bastila could look no more, and turned her eyes away. "I don't know who he is," she said. "I don't recognize him."

Not like this, no, replied Master Zhar. They had to shave off all his hair for the surgery. They still have to do more.

Vash added, "We'll see that you are sedated when that happens."

A cold stab of fear.

Bastila swallowed. "Could we.. is there a way.. how do we dissolve this bond?"

Zhar and Vash exchanged a glance.

"We need your help on this, Bastila," Vash replied. "We will do everything we can to protect you. Your wellbeing is important to us."

"I can't look anymore," she said, turning away. "The great sith lord."

He wasn't always, Zhar told her. Don't be afraid.

"I trust in your judgment," Bastila whispered. "I will do what is asked of me."

She was to come every day to see him that first week. One of the soldiers dragged in a mat for her to kneel on. In the dark, smelly chamber she attempted to meditate. Ventilation was poor and her robes cloyed to her skin. Sweat itched in uncomfortable crevices. Only until the afternoon of the first day did the woven mat hold out the wetness from the dank floor. It was a small mercy that after hours in the secret complex, Bastila became accustomed to the briny smell of kolto. If she didn't think about it.

From time to time, medical personnel came to treat the tank. They had chemical levels to adjust. Scans to run. They ignored her. Sometimes a soldier would come in to check on her. For the most part she was left alone. Her and him.

He looked disgusting in that tank of his. Pale and wet. She wondered why he didn't dissolve in there. Why he did not rot. She told herself that she had done the right thing, but had she? Looking at the metal that even then protruded from his skull, Bastila feared there was no way for him to come back from this.

Secretly, she hoped he wouldn't. It frightened her, the pale horrible thing in the tank. In the oppressive heat and smell of the hidden chamber, with a head full of wool, she began to hope that he would die somehow and nothing would come of this. She experienced emotions she could not name, thinking of this great lord Revan reduced to the shriveled flesh in the salty water.

But if he should die, would she die also?

Bastila struggled for clarity. She had a dim memory of childhood on Talravin, of the cold waters on the northern cape where she was born; she would think of a time where she had gone down to the beaches with her father, she would think of the time a wave had rolled over her, had pushed over her head with a roar of sound. She felt like that now, kicking and fighting to break the surface, but her thoughts were drowned out. So hard to think, so hard to focus. The code brought no comfort to her.

I am so lost. I am so lost.

How had this happened?

She remembed Master Fethnu, the approach to the Indomitable. She remembered his cold face, his cold eyes, the way his four-fingered hands clenched and unclenched. He was dissatisfied with her and told her so on many an occasion. His voice as frigid as Arkania. You will never learn to control yourself, will you?

He did not die easy. None of them did.

In her mind's eye, she saw it again and again, the way Revan moved, the way the mask oriented to regard her closely.

She heard the voice speak through the vocabulator, heard it even now, as the buzz of the kolto tanks grew louder and louder.

BASTILA SHAN, Revan said, I HAVE WAITED FOR YOU. I HAVE SUCH THINGS TO SHOW YOU.

Her eyes opened.

She was alone.

Her and him.

The thing in the tank.

* * *

She stayed away. She would not go.

"I can't go there anymore," she whimpered into her knees. She pulled up tight in her bedsheets, pulled up close, her body shaking beyond her control. "I can't, I simply can't."

Her shame poured down her cheeks, wet and hot, and she could not bear to pull out of her contorted posture. She couldn't bear to look upon Master Vash.

Lonna came to her and brought her gently into the folds of her travelling cloak. Bastila resisted, at first, but she was so long starved for affection that she couldn't help but press into the Corellian's arms. "There you are," Vash said. "You know, even I have days I simply don't want to get out of bed. I understand completely. My bond with my apprentice has caused me much grief. He is among the most headstrong and impatient young men I have ever encountered. It is why I chose him, of course, and I know one day he will make a fine jedi. I wouldn't want it any different."

She took in a breath. "I can't begin to imagine the struggle you now face. It was by happenstance this came upon you, but the _ashla_ works in ways we do not always understand. I believe Revan is worth redemption. I don't know what form it will take.. If it is meant to be.. but I know that we must try."

"I'm so confused," Bastila whispered.

"I know. I know. And perhaps it isn't all your own emotions. Who knows what he can sense, what he dreams in there. He's been betrayed by the one he loved and trusted most, his own brother in spirit, and he is here captive in the hidden base of his enemies."

Bastila turned a sharp look to Lonna, then, whose gray eyes looked squarely into her own. "Make no mistake," Vash continued, softly. "There are many here who would kill him. Some are restrained by the wishes of the Council. Some not. Some hold back from the fear that we would lose you too. Some have weighed that price.. "

Vash stroked her hair. "I've never believed he meant to destroy the Republic. I don't know what he intended. I don't know the reason, not yet. We need you to be strong, Bastila. He needs you."

* * *

Even in Dantooine's morning light, Bastila felt a darkness she could not escape. The ride seemed longer than ever, stretching on and on, and she felt hot and cold all at once. Too much movement. Too much wind. The soldier brought the speeder round to a stop, and she threw up in the grass on her hands and knees. Her senses returned to her with a twinge of shame, the great jedi sentinel Bastila Shan out here like this, like some party girl staggering home. She could almost hear her mother now.

The soldier was a different one than before, an older man with perhaps a bit of mirialan in him. His bearing was professional and without judgment for her; she got the feeling he might have had a daughter only a few years younger than herself. He handed her his canteen of water, for which she was grateful.

"I apologize," she said.

"No worries, ma'am," he replied. "You were out at Valla's moon, weren't you? For the strikes?"

"Yes- yes, I was."

He looked out across the grass and nodded slowly. "There was talk you were," he said. "Even if it was just rumors.. helped to think you were there to have our back."

"I don't remember much of it, how it went, to be honest. When I go into my trance.. I feel everything, and nothing. It goes by.. like a dream."

He held out a gloved hand to help her up. She handed back his canteen.

"The sith took Revan," the soldier said.

Bastila bit her lip. "I.. I've been told not to discuss it. I hope you understand."

The soldier nodded. His eyes were the deepest green she had ever seen, nearly black, reminding her of the seaweed that would wash up back home on Talravin. Those eyes studied her now. "I don't want to go too far, ma'am.. but there was a time when we owed everything to Revan, Alek, Arren Kae, Yusanis, the Onderon prince, the others like them. Revan stood up for us when no one else would. Things had gotten so terrible.. no help from anyone.. and then the jedi came just as we wanted so badly. And Revan leading them. Didn't even know what was under the mask, who was in there. Maybe it didn't matter."

Bastila took in a breath. What to say?

"I just hope, ma'am, you'll keep in mind that even after everything.. after all this.. many of us still think Revan's our hero. Might be that something's happened. Revan helped us when we needed help most.. ah, I don't know. Beg pardon, I shouldn't talk like this."

She laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed, once, before she climbed back up into the speeder.

The soldier said, "It's just that I hope she'll listen to you, ma'am. You've got to help her."

* * *

Down and down into the hidden complex Bastila went. At one point in her dreadful visitation here she had come to wonder the original purpose of the facility. Had it been the original enclave? Had it been moved? But she had never seen a dwelling and teaching-place of the Order to be so full of locked doors, controlled points, and narrow corridors rife with hidden turrets.

When the whole procedural had been accomplished, she at last gained entry to the kolto chamber and its humid recesses. She saw then she was not alone.

It was Arren Kae.

A sharp panic gripped Bastila's heart, but then, she realized the woman was far too young to be Arren Kae, and that Kae had died on Malachor.

The girl was the youngest of the echani handmaidens, the shameful evidence of Arren Kae's sin. She stood before the kolto tank, her hand upon the glass. Her face held an expression that Bastila could not decipher.

Then it was gone.

"Mistress," the girl said softly with elegant composure.

Bastila felt she had intruded upon a private moment. She searched for something to say. "How is he doing? Has he moved at all?"

"Five of the best surgeons in the Republic have been shuttled out here to tend to him. They are resting now. They say it will happen early in the morning."

Bastila nodded.

The girl took a few steps closer. "Do you feel him?" she asked. "Is he in pain?"

"It's hard to say," Bastila replied. "I, I mean, I don't believe he is experiencing any pain. It's quite pleasant to be immersed in kolto ordinarily."

The girl watched her face.

"I feel a kind of.. Confusion. It's difficult to concentrate. I'm.. a little afraid."

"You should not be. We all die."

Bastila could not name her apprehension, her regrets. "Yes. It is the natural way of things."

"How did he fight, when you fought?"

She almost smiled. For the echani it was all fighting, all combat. "I don't know. It all happened so quickly. I made it to the bridge and I'm certain I would have been killed. Then the Leviathan fired on us."

"I will leave you to you to your meditations," the handmaiden said. "Be at peace. You have done all you can."

Bastila turned her eyes to the thing in the tank. "Wait," she said.

"Yes, mistress?"

"What was his name?"

* * *

The rest of the day passed in contemplation. It passed too quickly.

She attempted to center herself in thoughts of tranquility and oneness. She drew upon the sayings of the masters of old. She tried to believe, but the words rang hollow and fear rose up in her like cold water that would close over the top of her head.

She found herself in anger, kneeling in the dank stink of the kolto chamber. Anger for the thing inside the tank. He had gone against the Council to engage the Mandalorians in their foolish war. He had made a mockery of the Order and its sacred ways. He had succumbed to his own petty temptations and doomed so many.

It was late afternoon by the time she returned to the enclave. There was time enough to join the young padawans for the day's-end session; they were training with wooden staves, each in his row and column, going about their stances and motions.

She joined masters Zhar, Dorak, and Vash for the evening meal, though she had been advised to eat little. There was conversation; she nodded and spoke when appropriate, but had no heart for it.

After bathing she went to see the children one last time, where they lay in their cots, with their sweet little hands, their sweet faces. A wistful pain went across her heart.

Bastila knelt by her mat that night. She cleared her mind.

Throughout the day she had come to realize that she had unfinished business. She knew she had to cast them aside to achieve inner peace.

Her origins before joining the Order, before becoming what she was. She thought of her mother, shrewish and resentful, from a respected family long out of money. Her father, a winsome free spirit, lured by far-off places and treasures. His death and how it shadowed her childhood. She loved him and loved how they traveled. The places they went, and the place they came home to: rainy Talravin and its loamy smell, its heathers and bluff grasses. The blue fog in the morning..

If Revan died, she may die also. But she had tried her best. She had tried to take him alive. It was the jedi way.

She would live and die for the Order.

It gave her no peace.

She lay in her cot waiting, heartsick, watching the dawn come through the window.

And after that, Bastila knew nothing.


	2. Chapter 2

Bastila felt sunlight on the skin of her eyelids. She nuzzled her face into her pillow, breathing in the lavender smell from the soft stuffing. Only at the end of her aching stretch did she realize she had awakened; she was alive.

Revan's surgery must have been a success. Or was it? Was he dead, and was she free?

Her eyes snapped open and she found she was not alone. An ancient draethos was folded into blue and green robes in the corner of the room, his skinny limbs arrayed in a meditative posture.

"Master Oranpati," she said, sitting up. "My, but.. what are you doing here?"

As a child, the toothy head-shapes of the draethos had frightened her; Mother had threatened her with monsters that would eat her at night if she were naughty, and young Bastila had burst into tears at the first sight of the jedi watchman. 'No, mama, I'll be a good girl, please,' she'd begged.

Oranpati made the soft rumbly sound that meant a draethos smile. In his fluting alien tongue he told her that he had come to see her.

A cold flash went across her body. She thought: have I died? Or has Revan awakened? Has he won? Is this real?

She looked instinctively out of the window but the woven blinds showed only slatted sunlight beyond. Another beautiful day on Dantooine.

She was so thirsty..

Oranpati told her that he had come onworld to rest awhile. He had been told of her heroics.

"I only did what any one of us would do," she replied, and she met the old master in the center of the room. He moved as slowly as she, and took her hands in his skinny four-fingered grip. He was cool to the touch, in reptile fashion.

"You're hurt," she realized.

The draethos snorted softly. He took a scratch while fighting to hold off the sith at a station off Vanquo._ It is of no concern._

His long alien fingers caressed her hands fondly. Each long finger had a hooked nail on it. He had a way of inclining his head slightly when he spoke to her, turning a big wet eye upon her. Even when she had been a padawan, he had been old. An old man of an old race. It was said he was nearly six hundred.

"What happened?"

Oranpati and the others were able to hold off the sith. _Vanquo remains free from the sith.. for now. There are still many who are loyal to Revan, not to Malak. But it may not matter. Come with me._

_

* * *

_

Bastila ate with a hunger that surprised even herself. The old draethos watched her with an expression she had learned to interpret as amused. They sat together in the solitude of a stone garden at the enclave perimeter.

Oranpati told her that he remembered her first day coming to the jedi.

"Oh _no_, I could do without that," Bastila said. "Crying and crying.. And then stuffing my face like a pudgy little brat, while all the other children were so well-behaved and disciplined."

Oranpati rumbled softly. _But how was young Bastila to know any better? The memory is not to embarrass you. Only a fondness. It has been a pleasure to watch her to grow into a talented knight._

Pausing to drink from his tea with both hands, Oranpati added then,_ like Nomi Sunrider._

"I will never be like her," Bastila said, lowering her eyes. "Not _now_, at any rate. If you know what has happened with.. a certain someone.. then you must know I am bound to him and I fear the Council will bar my return to the front lines."

Oranpati said: _Nomi was as skilled in war as in peace._

Uncomfortable with the comparison, and undeserving, Bastila sought to change the subject. "I'm to assume that the surgery with Revan was a success? That is, that he didn't die, at any rate."

_The surgeons were able to remove the shrapnel and its fragments. He is stable. Master Vash says that you will be able to see him tomorrow._

"I don't know that I necessarily want to," Bastila admitted as she took another bite of bread.

The draethos ran slim fingers along his jaw, a gesture that meant that he was thinking.

"I'm sorry," Bastila put in quickly. "I realize how selfish that sounds."

Oranpati told her that it was best to be honest about oneself. He was glad that she told him this and that she should not hesitate. They have known one another for very long.

"Only for twenty-some years. That's nothing to your kind! Only a blink of an eye."

_My point remains. Please tell me what you are thinking._

She had a sudden, frantic thought: they've sent him here to spy on me!

Oranpati replied, _Dantooine was the closest point of refuge for a broken old jedi like me._

He added, wryly: _and no one tells me what to do._

Bastila sighed. "And you read my mind so easily."

Oranpati made an elegant gesture with his spindly hands. It was an apology for doing so, but just then she broadcasted so loudly.

"I suppose I'm just very nervous." Bastila clutched a rind of bread in both hands. "I want to do the right thing."

The draethos nodded his head, slowly and once.

"I don't know what they want me to do. When they flush him out of the tank.. well, then what? I am expected to try to convince him to be good? Oh, please, Lord Revan, don't you think you shouldn't be so naughty anymore? And he will say.. " Bastila deepened her voice to talk like a man. "'_Oh all right, have it your way_.'"

She was waving around her hank of her bread as she talked.

Oranpati rumbled.

"I just don't see this ending well," she replied. "This is, after all, the man responsible for the Red Dragon, the Sullust Plague incident, Malachor Five, and, well, that horrible story with that Mandalorian warlord and the razor-backed tickleworm."

Oranpati winced.

Bastila dropped her rind of bread on her lacquer tray and leaned back. "Exactly."

The draethos lifted the tea pot to pour Bastila a new cup. _There has been some discussion about the state of Revan's health._

"So long as he can lift his little finger, he'll find a way to make mischief. Mark my words."

Oranpati told her that it was no so much the state of his body as that of his mind. _It has been three days since Revan's surgery._

Bastila froze.

_I have cared for you,_ Oranpati replied. He reached a hand across to touch her hand, and then to guide it to the warm cup of tea freshly poured for her. _I do not think the Council has as much to fear from Revan as they do. I do not think he will ever be the same._

Bastila held the warmth of the cup, watching the old master's face. His elongated skull was crisscrossed with scratches, and the violet scales looked a dull and muddy color in the light. "Do you suppose, then, that he can be saved?"

Oranpati did not know.

"Do you suppose, then, that he will live long enough to tell me the secret of his power? These machines and where he found them?"

Oranpati did not know.

Bastila took in a breath, then. Quietly, she asked, "Master Oran.. You've lived a long time.. have you ever seen... well, if he should die, will I die also?"

Oranpati did not know. _But she must be brave. Remember Nomi Sunrider._

_

* * *

_

That evening, Vash came for her. Clouds of insects were buzzing around the outdoor lights, while others buzzed and sawed from the tall grasses. Kath hounds howled from time to time. A duros master was holding a class in the outer courtyard, and adolescent jedi went through Ataru kata in their precise rows and columns. Bastila gave them a last glance as she followed Lonna away; oh, if anyone else knew the secret that the Council kept out in the savannah!

"Master Oranpati hasn't left your side," Vash told her, as a new trooper helped them up into the speeder. A different one than before. "Thankfully, the procedure went without too many complications."

"I can barely feel him," Bastila said. "Not like before."

"Well, he's healing now, and we've fitted him with something to keep him.. calm. In any case.. " Vash turned to look at her. "He's got a metal plate holding his head together. Please let me know if you experience any dizziness on our way over. It might not be right away."

Bastila held her cloak tighter to her body. "I.. Oh."

"I'll go with you when we see him."

She was expecting the smell. Waiting for it. Could already smell it, to be honest. More than the dark and weird environs of the kolto chamber, with the weird bubbling tanks and clusters of hoses, more than how it looked she remembered how it smelled.

Bastila prepared herself for the arduous procedures that would take them corridor by corridor, the surrender of her lightsaber, identity scan by identity scan, turret by turret, bothan by bothan, down into the recesses of the hidden complex. Instead, they took a sideways and circuitous route, compartment by compartment, to an unadorned hallway that looked like every other.

Then Vash touched a minute indentation and a wall panel slid away to allow a secret passageway.

Used to the recycled air of the hidden complex, Bastila felt the rush of warm night air on her face. Fresh oxygen and the smell of grass.

"This way," Lonna said, and she led Bastila outdoors. It made sense; the complex resembled the architecture of the enclave and so of course it must have an inner courtyard as well, though smaller and more restricted.

There were a cluster of low benches, a stone garden, and a blba tree with a natural fountain bubbling about its roots. Lanterns hung from its branches and gave the place a more relaxed feel than what Bastila might have ordinarily thought, what with the hidden complex, the writhing masses of guards, and the space fighters parked nearby.

It felt like a secret garden, like something in the stories her father would read to her.

Then she saw him.

Darth Revan was sitting on one of the benches by the fountain. He was looking right at her.

Lonna braced her arm when she jumped.

"It's all right," Vash said. "We're perfectly safe. He isn't aware of anything."

Bastila focused.

He faced them, but his eyes saw nothing. They had a sheen on them like an animal's eyes, like flashes of kath eyes in the grasses at night. His mouth was slack and open. He was arranged like a raggedy doll, propped up, really, and with no wonder. A neural collar was locked about his neck.

"Ladies." It was the blond medic from before. He was in the bright uniform of the Republic Navy. "You've come at a good time. He just woke up a half hour ago."

Trask was bringing a tray toward Revan, setting it down on a little table. He was all smiles, kind and gentle, and didn't possess the slightest apprehension about the monster who had murdered so many.

"Can he talk? Does he know?" Bastila whispered to Lonna, holding back, as though she was a frightened little padawan again.

Trask must have heard her, because he said, "No, ma'am, he doesn't say anything. I don't think he knows where he is right yet, but that's probably for the best. I saw him move around a little, but mostly, he's taking it easy right now. I'm going to see if he'll drink some water."

"He's doing much better than we expected," Lonna told her, giving her arm a squeeze. "We didn't know if removing the metal from his head would make it worse."

"The swelling's gone down," Trask said. "He just needs to rest."

While the medic poured from the pitcher and went about the process of trying to give water to the drooling lord of the sith, Vash took Bastila aside a moment. "You're perfectly safe here, Bastila. I know it distresses you to see him face to face, but he can do nothing to you. Look at me."

Bastila looked into Lonna's gray eyes. "I- I can't _believe_ this."

Darth Revan coughed water. She heard it, _felt_ it.

"I'll be honest with you," Vash said in a voice just above a whisper. "We need to know what he knows. But no one is certain if he will recover from this state. You need to be strong for him. For the Republic. You've got to try. It's all we have now."

"I will do as you ask of me," Bastila said, lowering her eyes. "For the Republic."

"It may be that he will never truly awaken. But you need to try and hold on to that little spark that's left of him. Perhaps in meditation you will be able to touch his mind. It's true he has commited so much violence.. but deep down, I believe he joined the Mandalorian Wars to try and save the Republic. I think he truly believed it was worth saving. No matter what he did afterwards." Vash took Bastila's face very gently in her hands. Up close, Bastila saw the darker age spots on them. Strange to think of Lonna _old_, but she looked weary now, even in the softer light of the secret courtyard. "I need you to try, Bastila. Try to find his spirit. Help him help us."

Bastila nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Vash stroked her hair and then turned away. "I must speak with Master Atris now," Lonna said. "May the force be with you."

And so, Bastila was left alone with an ordinary man and the most dangerous sith lord in recent memory.

For a full minute, she waited to die. It had to be some joke. At any moment, Revan was going to spring into action and hold Trask Ulgo off the ground by his throat. Or explode his head. Or shoot lightning. Or something terrible.

And for a full minute there was no sound but the burbling of the blba root fountain.

Bastila approached slowly, warily. By instinct, her hands hovered as though to unclip her lightsaber from her belt, but she had surrendered her weapon upon entry to the complex.

She stood a good lunge-length away. Trask continued in the impossible task of trying to get Revan to drink a glass of water. Most of it wound up on the front of his tunic, soaking in to make a darker gray. Some of it dripped off his chin.

He looked awful, like a skull with skin stretched tight over it. Hollow cheeks, deep eye sockets. His nose had been broken at some point and purple scars provided the only color to his face. His skin showed a grayish color and even in dim light, the veins spiderwebbed through like cracks in glass.

He didn't have any eyelashes or eyebrows. His head was bald but for the ugly purple lines where they had cut into his skull. He looked like a bruised and rotting melon.

"All right, well, good try," Trask said, giving up on the water for now. "We'll try again later." The medic turned to include Bastila as he spoke. "Anyway, ma'am, we can get him his fluids intravenously, so we don't have to worry about dehydration."

Trask smiled.

Bastila arched an eyebrow.

"Do you realize- do you know," she started, "who this is?"

Trask stood. "Yes, ma'am."

Bastila looked for words. How did she want to say this. "And that doesn't.. " she fluttered her hands. "That doesn't concern you? Mightily?"

"No, ma'am. It's my job."

"Yes, but.. "

"I know some people who wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him and his friends," Trask said, then. "Family, even. I know it won't level out what he's done since he came back.. but I'll do my duty, and I'll trust the admiral, and I'll trust the jedi. Ah, now, if I could step out a minute? You want to talk to him?"

Bastila felt a thrill of fear. Would he act when they were alone?

"By all means," she said.

Trask nodded and walked off briskly. A soft woosh of a sound accompanied his exit through a panelled door.

Bastila crept closer to the dark lord, who showed no reaction. She tried to calm her nerves, but she was afraid to come too close. Thoughts of their last encounter flashes through her head.

But here they were alone in a courtyard with a fountain and a tree.

Bastila cleared her throat. "Well," she said.

His eyes stared blankly. They were a very light color, up close, with smudges of blood in the white. Disgusting. It made her wince just to look at him. Even at a safe distance, his skin was giving off an unpleasant smell that the antiseptic couldn't mask. The nighttime insects wouldn't even touch him.

The neural collar must be very strong. Had to be. She felt pressed to say something, but she didn't know if it would do any good. He could barely even muster the power to blink his eyes.

She had to say something.

"Well, I don't know if you can even hear me, but I'm Bastila Shan, and you are.. once again.. with the Order on Dantooine. No one is going to harm you here. I want to help you, if you let me."

She stared at the slack face.

"Or you could just, I don't know, drool," she said.

He did so.

She narrowed her eyes.

When a side door suddenly opened with a _woosh_, Bastila very nearly had a heart attack.

Especially since it looked as though Arren Kae had burst upon the scene. Bastila experienced a jolt of horror, thinking, momentarily, that the wretched woman Kae had come to save her baby.

It was only Arren Kae's daughter, the youngest of the echani handmaidens.

She walked stiffly, head bent, eyes on the ground. In the light of the courtyard her white clothing seemed to glow. "Mistress," she said, hanging back. "I.. apologize, if I was interrupting."

Her silver eyes darted up, furtively, but Bastila caught her looking. "No, you weren't," she said. Trask reappeared from another entryway, a datapad in one hand.

The echani girl said, "I'm to escort you to your new quarters."

Bastila drew back. "_Here_?"

"Yes, mistress." The echani girl dipped in a bow.

"They think it'll make it easier on the both of you, seeing how it is," Trask said as he returned. He gave what he supposed was a reassuring smile. He had the look of a holo-show doctor. "You might be the best way for us to tell if his treatment is working, or if it's not working. I'll add myself to your comm. Tell me anything, anytime, even if you think you'll wake me up. Let me know if you experience anything weird."

"Anything weird, well, besides this _entire situation_?" Bastila couldn't help it; the words were already out of her mouth, and they sounded shrill. She sounded like Mother.

"Ma'am, I know it's tough," Trask said, gently. "I volunteered. You didn't. You didn't ask for this, but if you can do this, if you can help him.. I know there's good in it."

The echani girl didn't look her in the eye; she merely waited, poised, obediant. It was this that made Bastila regain her composure. She wouldn't be outshone by Arren Kae's bastard.

"Very well," Bastila replied. "It makes sense." As she followed the echani girl out, she muttered, "So long as we don't have bunk beds like little padawans. Spaaare me."

* * *

That night she studied the ceiling of her new room, gray and windowless. She couldn't sleep, not with Darth Revan running around free. Well. Sitting around, free. Free-ish.

Who knew if it was an act.

He could fight his way out. Kill the jedi masters here. Vash, Atris, and who knows who else. Possibly that wretched Kae girl would aid him. They were practically like brother and sister.

Or he would just slip out. Steal one of the spacecraft.

The possibilities were endless. He had ways. You couldn't trust him.

She slipped on her tunic and stepped into her trousers. Barefoot, she left her quarters and made her way down the corridor. After a minute, she discovered that she was stealing along like a thief. No one told her she couldn't wander around. No one told her she couldn't have a look. Why shouldn't she be able to look in on Revan.

Yet she felt something like guilt, and something like suspicion. It was all the security here, she started to think. All the turrets, the identity checks, the armed guards. She had grown up with a fierce pride and love of the Republic military, and she wanted nothing more to return to her boys and girls on the front lines. Yet here she felt a trepidation she could not quite name.

Revan wasn't kept very far from her. And she knew where he was. The strange thing was that she could sense him, in fact, if she concentrated, she could very well picture what he was doing at the moment. Drooling, probably, but he was seated. She had the feeling that he was sitting on the floor where he was closer to the ground, where he wouldn't slide off a bench or a chair.

She found him in his room, against a wall, not even cross legged. One leg was out, the other just there, and his shoulders slumped. Bastila had once seen a trooper shot between the eyes. There had been a burst on the wall above his head, and he had just slid down. Revan reminded her of that, his posture, his blank stare, the way his mouth hung open.

Kneeling nearby, like a devoted parent, Master Zhar gently wiped his mouth and nose with the edges of his robe. Zhar had always looked so blunt and worn, with the bumpy face and sharp teeth and calloused hands. Like a real twi'lek, not the supple and oiled slaves that had been primped and pampered for others' pleasure; he looked like the sand-blasted race of hunters from that miserable planet. Yet now there was a tenderness on his face that made Bastila feel small and ashamed.

Zhar did not turn to see her, but he knew, and said: _It is good of you to come to check on him. Mercy is a virtue of the _ashla.

Bastila bit her lip."Yes, mercy," she said. "You knew him, then, from before.. "

Zhar touched Revan's wounded skull, near where his eyebrow had been. He was careful not to apply any pressure to the puckered-looking scars. _I have known him since Arren brought him to us._

"I.. I don't think that I've met him before at all. I don't recognize his face."

Zhar turned a look over his shoulder and smiled. _No_, he said. _Not with his nose in a book most of the time._

The twi'lek master made a welcoming gesture to invite her to sit with them.

Reluctantly, she eased down as though she were going to sit on a bed of coals. She hadn't wanted to, but she could hardly refuse Master Zhar. He showed no sign of fear or disgust, and to Bastila's revulsion, the twi'lek took one of the limp pale hands and held it between his own.

_No matter what has happened_, Zhar told her, looking her in the eye. _He is still one of us. He is still a jedi. He has wandered away from the path and gone somewhere very dark. No one knows what has happened to him, but we must help him. It is never too late for redemption._

Bastila closed her eyes, thinking of Master Oranpati, and how the old draethos master cared for her. How he had guided her teaching. So it must have been for Zhar and Revan.

"I never knew him," she admitted in a quiet voice, as though she were confessing to Oranpati. "It's difficult for me to look at him and see anyone else, or anything else. I see the mask."

Zhar understood._ You were brave to stand against him. Master Fethnu would have been proud._

Bastila bit her lip. The arkanian had died shrieking how the mission had failed, shrieking for Bastila to kill herself so the sith would not take her alive. His white face had been contorted in rage as she knelt to try and help him, frantic, before the jets of alien blood finally subsided in a last few bubbling pumps-

Zhar touched her face with two gray-purple fingers, drawing her chin back up.

_You must not regret what you did. Only he can help us. And only you can help him._

Then in a terrible moment she did not expect, Zhar placed one of her hands on Revan's.

* * *

That night, she trembled in her room, fists clenched. She would do what she had to do. She could not fail the masters. She could not fail. She resolved to help Revan, whether he liked it or not.

* * *

In the morning, she dressed with purpose and intensity. Tunic, trousers, boots, obi. She brushed out her hair and drew it up as severely as possible.

She went through a series of breathing exercises and then centered herself on thoughts of peace and tranquility.

When this didn't work, she threw them out and opted for self-righteousness instead. She had deserved it.

"When I last saw you," Bastila said as soon as she swept into Revan's little holding room, "when you were _you_, you were standing on the bridge of the Indomitable with a boot on the body of a jedi consular, and you told me in your terrible shrieky voice that you had something in store for me, probably something very _rude_... well, it appears the tables are turned, my friend, they have turned indeed and I tell you what, I shall _not_ be tolerating any sort of treachery, wickedness, sith ritual, sith alchemy, sith power, dark side force usage, any force usage, so help me, you shouldn't so much as belch. I don't know if I made myself clear last night, but I am Bastila Shan, and I am the master.. and _you_ are the apprentice. Are we clear?"

Revan sat tamely at his table, slouched over rather a lot, barely held up by the slump of his arm.

Bastila narrowed her eyes. "Then we're clear?"

In normal lighting, she saw now that his eyes were yellow. Still bloody. Drooping lids with no lashes, sick-looking, really.

"Blink if you understand."

He was in shades of brown and rust today, but he wore the same neural collar.

"Drool if you understand," Bastila said, then.

In that case, Revan had an explicit understanding of the matter.

"Well, ma'am.. " Trask was always positive. "We've got to start somewhere, right?"


	3. Chapter 3

And so Bastila Shan launched an oppressive and merciless campaign whose opening strikes consisted of lecture, readings, meditation, and holo. They weren't even any of the entertaining kind of holo, but the dreary and stultifying grainy footage designed to make any sentient being feel bad about itself.

"You are on a dark path," Bastila told him, as they sat together in the meditation room, "and I will lead you back into the light. But first you must reject the _bomon_ and its power over you, after all, fat lot of good it did you. Darth Revan, Lord of the Sith. Why, you're just a big bully..."

He stared blankly. The remains of his shattered teeth were hardly keeping the drool in today.

"You don't even know where you are," she said.

Revan continued to stare at some point in mid distance. His eyelids were barely opened.

"Well," Bastila said brightly, "then you can't argue and waste time, and time isn't what we have, not for any sort of _dilly-dally_. Moving on, I think we will find a valuable lesson in the teachings of Master Pratev, the sullustan wizard.. "

* * *

And so there he was.

Day in, day out.

She had grown accustomed to the sight of him, his long lean body, his slouching posture, his bent head, his face.

The gruesome swelling in his face and neck were subsiding and he was starting to look like a man. The bruises were still thick beneath his bloody eyes, on his throat, his naked skull. His lips looked cracked and his skin chapped and scaly. Sometimes his saliva would run black. Sometimes his nose bled. In one disgusting episode, partly through a reading of the Incantations of Discipline, he drooled out a thick rope of slobber and a rotten tooth.

"We still really don't have a good idea how the body is affected," Trask said. "By the dark side, I mean." He stepped in with all the nonchalance of a waiter wiping up a spill, as though Bastila had been careless with a cup of caffa.

"Well I would think it is obvious," Bastila replied. "It decays the body as it decays the soul." It had unnerved her to look up from her text and see _that_. The medic seemed impervious to any kind of disgust or horror and though she'd seen worse, something about the situation made it different, personal even.

"From a medical standpoint, ma'am," he said. Always helpful, always optimistic. "It's just not well understood. It's not often we get someone like him.. a chance to help like this."

Bastila kept her eyes on the fountain. "Are you finished?"

"Yes ma'am. Again, be sure to tell me if you experience any headaches or other pain. There's been some talk of fixing his teeth. It's been hard to get real life professionals out here.. ones we can trust to keep a secret. Hope we don't have to go droid, but.. "

* * *

Arren Kae's bastard told Bastila his name, his real name. Part of her had expected something dashing, something sensuous, something to fit the Darth Revan mystique. She hadn't counted on the overlong mish-mash of consonants that made 'Alek Squinquargesimus' sound straight to the point. The peoples of distant Quellia were a diverse and mysterious lot, united by the alien customs of the Outer Rim, and the complete inability to speak in a language that made any sense at all.

"It's no wonder you came up with some silly title to call yourself," Bastila chided him one afternoon. "What a horrid name you have, really. I don't even know where to begin. It sounds like an alien with hiccups.. or a child mashing keys on a computer."

She arched an eyebrow as though half-expecting him to respond against this personal slight. None. Never.

"Count your nasty blessings that I don't get to name you," she said. "And don't think I'd feel bad about it at all. Remember when you said you would capture me and do terrible things to me? Oh yes—I remember too. I do indeed, my squalid little friend. If you get out of this with no less a name than Pinky Puddlejump, you shall be counted lucky.. "

* * *

Determined to save him from himself, Bastila continued her daily onslaught of spiritual bombardment. She cut straight to the heart of the matter with the Chant of Admonishments, the Scrolls of Atonement, and the Seventy-Nine Lessons of Master Sarpeppa-kol.

"So you see," Bastila Shan said one morning, with the decisive shutting of her book, "Master Sarpeppa was considered in his time as in this one to be the foremost authority on the purging of destructive negatives and the achievement of unity in the Force, which we must all strive for in our solemn duty in the Order."

Darth Revan slowly, inevitably, dropped face-first into his bowl of porridge.

Trask jumped up from his holo.

"And for a moment," Bastila sighed, "I thought you were nodding in agreement.. "

* * *

Bloody smudges went from red to dark brown, and then from brown to a liver color, and then they cleared entirely. But the yellow of his eyes remained, and was, by all accounts, their natural shade.

Vash believed him to have had near-human parentage of some kind. Impossible to say at this point, and only Alek might have known. Zhar used to think that the boy might have some cathar in him. The eyes, the reflex and clever wit, the sense of balance and affinity for feline creatures. _Always napping, too,_ Master Zhar told her with a needlelike smile.

Then Arren Kae's bastard showed Bastila his stripes. It had been just the two of them in the courtyard. A moment that seemed close and illicit, even now. Trask had gone out and Brianna—that was her name- had come in with an earthen decanter. Bastila hadn't been sure how it came about, but she'd been caught looking critically at one of Revan's arms. Not touching, of course. His skin looked like it would puncture if you did. He just looked so sickly and disgusting, really—she hadn't meant anything improper—oh, disgusting, how could you even—

"I was just concerned," Bastila huffed. "All those weird marks, nasty tattoos, and veins standing out.. "

"It's all right," the echani said softly. She sat very close to Revan on the stone bench, as though she really was his sister. Against the snow white of her skin and clothing, the sith looked so yellowed, so veiny.

Bastila raised her eyebrows in her most disapproving Helena Shan expression.

Brianna gently brought up her hand beneath his hand, and then pulled his sleeve back a bit. "The ink, he's always had," she said. "If you look closely, the stripes are made of script."

"That's close enough for me," Bastila said.

"He had them done to rebel against Arren Kae, when he was young," Brianna said. There was a slight hitch, a hesitation in her voice. Her eyes moved to the left of Bastila's head, to the doors of the courtyard, before they focused on her again. Bastila had seen his markings before; she'd seen him nude suspended in a tank. She didn't care to know, and didn't know why the handmaiden had stepped up to the border of impropriety as she did now.

It must run in the blood.

Brianna lowered her silver eyes from the critical gaze of the jedi sentinel. Her hands fell away, though she still sat so very close to him. "He wasn't always.. " she started, in her low smooth voice. A cold voice, smooth, like marble. "Arren Kae never came for me. But he would send me things.. from the places that he went to. Little gifts and mementos from worlds even the archives would not know." Her throat tightened. Something came and went. She bowed her head, put her hands together in a deferential gesture. "I'm sorry, mistress," she said, and she was gone.

* * *

Master Atris did not approve of any of this.

More and more, Bastila could hear the woman's strident voice through the walls of her chamber at night. She couldn't quite make out the words, or to whom she spoke.

The abrasive tones went straight to Bastila's heart. She could not help the guilt she felt, as though she weren't trying hard enough. There had to be more that she could do.

It would be easier if they could adjust the settings on the collar. Dial it down a bit. Or remove it entirely.

Bastila brought the bedsheets higher, closer to her mouth. What if that's what he wanted her to do? What if that was his plan? Mind-control her into setting him free? The drooly business was all just a clever ploy…

She must guard herself. Remain vigilant. He was as clever as he was wicked. This could all be a test. Could all be a dream.

Her greatest fear was that Malak had not fired on Revan's flagship—had not saved her from the inevitable. What if this was all a daydream, a hallucination, a fever dream of her brain as she lay tortured in the dark lord's grip?

In the dark of the night, in the dead hours where doubt pressed in with the shadows, she feared that the world she knew was not real.. that she had been captured by Revan and this was all his fancy, his amusement.

_Bastila Shan_, he'd told her through the hideous shriek of the vocabulator._ I have waited for you. I have such things to show you._

* * *

"I wonder what you're thinking in there," Bastila told him the next morning, as they sat together in the courtyard's mossy nook. "I wonder if you are just seething with rage."

She studied his face. By this time a fuzz had begun to darken his skull. He even had eyebrows growing back in; she never realized how truly weird a humanoid face looked without eyebrows. Even the hairless alien races used paint or other markings to delineate the eyes.

"Well," Bastila said. "It serves you right, and to be honest, it's more than you deserve. You are being granted an opportunity of healing and salvation."

He just breathed in and out slowly, his head bowed slightly. Drooling again. Trask said they were going to fix his teeth in the next couple of days; they had managed to find qualified and discreet personnel to do this.

"Anyhow, back to our reading," Bastila said. "More on the philosophy of Master Sarpeppa's school.. "

Master Sarpeppa's philosophy was of course heavily influenced by the societal norms of his species and culture, which at the time was moving through a phase in direct reaction to the feudal wars and upheaval of that millennia. Bastila felt it necessary to devote some time to an explanation of that history, as to serve as context, and after awhile she no longer touched her holotext at all. Her mind wandered as she told him about the school on the high cliffs, the ruins so old that only tree roots held them together, and how she had once walked the beaches below as a child with her father, the treasure hunter, who told her about the mystic ancients and showed her the sad-eyed statues carved into the cliffs..

"I remember the waves crashing onto the sands, and just looking up, up up," Bastila said, "into the weathered faces of the sad-eyed statues of Sarpeppa's people. Long gone, nearly forgotten, and there were scores of nests built into the nooks and crannies of the cliffside statues.. "

Bastila's eyes moved to Revan's face. His yellow eyes stared empty and blank.

Memories of her father pulled on her heart, and she felt a deep wave of melancholy.

She set aside her holotext. The glowing letters faded as it deactivated.

An insect had landed on Revan's head. It pivoted, buzzed its wings, and pivoted again.

Disgusting. Now his head injury was attracting pests.

The insect began to stroll over the skin of his head, pausing by the ugly swell and bump of healing surgical scars. The creature began to rub its forelegs together in obscene planning.

Bastila flicked out her fingers to shoo the insect; when it persisted, she brushed it away, and her hand slid over the top of his head.

Revan _shivered_ and his head dipped toward his collar.

She froze. Wouldn't even breathe.

Then, very slowly, she laid her hand on his head, for a reason she could not say.

His blank yellow eyes went shut.

She could feel the warmth of his skin and the stubbly feel of the hair starting to grow back in.

His breathing took on a quicker pace. It wasn't only her imagination; she saw his chapped lips part, saw the brown and blotchy gums. She could hear the whistly, straining sound of aspiration.

She was repulsed to touch him at first. She had never done so on any prior occasion.

He was clean, as clean as they could get him. She could smell the sharp scent of antiseptic that they treated his sores and wounds with. They had him dressed in a plain spun tunic whose tan color only made his skin look more sickly and veiny a shade. Through the fabric she could feel the rigid neural collar, perhaps the only barrier to his revenge.

She had to tell herself that his corruption would not spread to her. It was a decay of the soul and her soul was stronger. It was all right to do this.

Steeling herself, Bastila moved her hand slowly, over the collar, touching now the warm skin of his throat. She felt his pulse coming through her fingers.

"You would kill me if you could," she murmured, whether for him or for her she did not know. She felt him turn blindly into her touch and Bastila found herself breathing just as hard, from fear as from excitement. _He moved!_

She couldn't look away. She waited for his yellow eyes to flash open. She waited for his hideous face to contort into a snarl. In a morbid corner of her mind, a shrill voice- her mother's voice- told her that even with companies of commandos patrolling the complex, there wouldn't be enough men to hold him back. Wouldn't be enough time. And she would have been stupid enough to let it happen, to think that she could save him..

But he did not open his eyes. He did not lift his head.

Slowly, she let her hand slide up to his jaw and ear. She felt him press against her.

"You don't even know where you are, do you," she whispered.

The fingers of her left hand now lifted to touch his brow, and then his mangy scalp again. Trask told her that they had to put a metal plate in there to keep his skull together.

Bastila wondered if he was hurting, would she feel it if he did. Their fates were tied together now, the reason she was here in a hidden courtyard with an invalid and away from the front lines with her power. She wondered if he even knew that she was there, or if he responded only to warmth and human contact.

In a long moment of nothing but the sound of the _blba_ root fountain and the sensation of his breathing, Bastila steadied herself. She could not allow herself to experience pity. He was not a victim. He was not a child. He had known what he was doing, that it was wrong. It was the point of _Revan_, wasn't it? A shadowy figure, a sudden and terrible revenge. Outrageous cruelty and terror. That evil mask taken from the Mandalorian dead. And this was the face behind it.

"You have done terrible things," she whispered to him, "but I believe in the beginning.. you thought you were saving the Republic. You defied the Council, you thought you knew better. They're giving you this chance.. you fought for the Republic once. They need you again."


End file.
